The object of my search might seem to have several advantages. Along with a growing certainty that I was right, however, I had persistence. I would not go away. I would outwait him if he were waiting. I would pursue him if I glimpsed his flight.
“I know you are there,” I said, “and I know that you can hear me. There must be an accounting now, for we have been pushed too far. I have come for it. Will you surrender yourself and answer our questions? Or do you wish to make a bad situation worse by being difficult about it?”
There came no answer. I still had not caught sight of what I had hoped to find.
“Well?” I said. “I am waiting. I can wait as long as is necessary. You have to be breaking the law-your law. I am positive of that. The nature of the entire setup requires injunctions against activities of this sort. I have no idea as to your motives, but they are not especially material at this point. I suppose that I should have caught on sooner, but I did not extend my recent awareness of the diversity of alien life forms quite quickly enough. So you got away with a lot. Back at the shack? Yes, I guess that is where I should have made the connection, the second time around. There were a few earlier encounters, but I think I may be excused missing their significance. Right here even, the night I tested the machine … Are you ready to come out? No? All right. My guess is that you are telepatbic and that all these words are unnecessary, as I did not hear you say anything to Zeemeister. Still, I am not of a mind to settle for anything less than certainty, so I shall continue in this fashion. I believe you possess a tapetum, like your model. I saw the light from below. Keep your eyes closed or your head turned away, or I’ll spot the light. Then, of course, you will not be able to see me. Your telepathic sense, though? I wonder now. It just occurred to me that you might betray yourself to M’mrm’mlrr if you use it. He isn’t all that far away. It is possible that you are now at a disadvantage. What do you say? Do you want to be graceful about it? Or would you rather sit out a long siege?”
Still nothing. But I refused to let a doubt enter my mind.
“Stubborn, aren’t you?” I went on. “But then I would imagine you have a lot to lose. Ragma and Charv seem to have a bit of leeway in their work, though, being this far from the center of things. Perhaps they know some way to make it go a trifle easier for you. I don’t know. Just talking. Worth thinking about, though. I believe the fact that no one has followed me up here indicates that M’mrm’mlrr is reading my thoughts and reporting the situation below. They must already be aware of everything that I have figured out. They must know that what tripped you up was no fault of your own. I do not believe that you or anyone else realized until just recently that the star-stone was sentient and that when I swiched it on it began recording data, tabulating it, processing it. It had a rough time because of the handedness barrier which still persisted, though, because what turned it on pretty much turned me off-for purposes of communicating with it. So it could not simply come out and deliver its conclusions concerning yourself. It gave me a line from Lewis Carroll, though. Maybe it picked it up back in the bookstore. I don’t know. It has had twisted versions of all my memories to play with, too. Wherever it got it, it did not click for me. Even though it was the second such attempt The smile came first. Nothing there for me either. Not until Uncle Albert said ‘Cheshire’ and I looked up and saw the outline of a cat against the moon, above the skylight. You dumped all that fishing gear on Paul Byler. Zeemeister was your creature. You needed human agents, and he was the perfect choice: venal, criminally competent and knowledgeable of the situation from the beginning. You bought him and sent him after the stone. Only the stone had other ideas, and at the last minute I caught them. You are in the form of a black cat who has crossed my path one time too many. Now I am thinking that if there are any lights up here, someone down below ought to go looking for the switchbox. Maybe they are already on their way to it. Shall we go below or wait for them? I’ll nail you once they come on.”